{"id":32,"date":"2014-09-05T00:33:43","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T00:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reviews.wheelerc.org\/?p=32"},"modified":"2014-09-05T00:33:43","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T00:33:43","slug":"happily-ever-after-by-elizabeth-maxwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wheelerc.org\/reviews\/2014\/09\/05\/happily-ever-after-by-elizabeth-maxwell\/","title":{"rendered":"Happily Ever After by Elizabeth Maxwell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crafty<\/strong>
\nElizabeth Maxwell, the author, uses two separate devices to tell her story. The first, which is only used to get the story started although it becomes the plot, is a writer telling a story, switching back to her life, story.
\nThe second one, which works but I doubt will ever work for any of Maxwell\u2019s readers a second time, is the use of craft to tell a story.
\nThat is to say, using information about the craft the narrator is engaged in to further propel the story. Think USA\u2019s \u201cBurn Notice.\u201d In that instance, a spy of sorts engages the viewer with it, with its background, with its creation and destruction, as a means to further his own narrative. Maxwell does the same, but for something she engages in: the writing of the romance novel.
\nThis isn\u2019t a knock on Happily Ever After (which is a terribly generic title.) It works in the context of the book. It\u2019s fully enjoyable. The problem arises with, it\u2019s a one-use-only kind of device, and one that used in this more narrowed instance, ruins all future uses by any other authors for readers.
\nThat is to say, I don\u2019t ever want to read another book that uses a telling of the craft of romance writing to propel a novel because, how many novels worth of craft are there to write about? There is a certain plateau, beyond which, everything is just jargon.
\nOthers have made comparisons to the film \u201cStranger Than Fiction.\u201d Certainly, the comparison is apt. They\u2019re the same kind of stories, the same sub-genre of sorts. Really, that\u2019s where the comparison should end.<\/p>\n

Exceeded expectations<\/strong>
\nI assumed when I started the book, but after I had read the reviews, I would hate it. I don\u2019t trust the overly positive, but short, reviews and the negatives one seemed to parrot what I\u2019ve seen as warning signs for other books.<\/p>\n

(Click link to read the rest of the review):<\/p>\n


\nI was wrong. I enjoyed the book, although I found it to be an incredibly fast read. Double spacing probably has something to do with that.
\nAlmost all of the pacing was on track, dialogue was well enough, there was enough setting, although New York could have used some more flavor.
\nMy biggest gripe is the lack of character\u2019s physical descriptions. With what little there was, I wasn\u2019t quite sure how to frame the characters in my mind. They did not embody anything, which was a shame.
\nHowever, the character development can feel a bit forced. It\u2019s certainly there.<\/p>\n

Present tense<\/strong>
\nThe book, I realized 2\/3 of the way through, takes place in present tense. I\u2019m not normally a fan of the present tense for narrative writing, but, it worked perfectly fine. Interesting decision on her part, especially as it feels much of the book has already unfolded and the narrator is telling the story as she looks back on it. Just a slight bit of cognitive dissonance there.<\/p>\n

Semi-ironic slut shaming<\/strong>
\nThe main character, the narrator, meets her love interest on Craigslist, searching for a sex-only relationship.
\nStill, she slut-shames her neighbor. She wants the heroine of her romance novel to be a strong woman, a woman who doesn\u2019t need a man but instead, engages men on her own terms. She runs a females-only household. Still, she slut-shames her neighbor. Just a little bit of cognitive dissonance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Jane\u2019s mother just invited the guy who teaches her gold at the club to move into their house. He\u2019s even sleeping in Jane\u2019s mother\u2019s room!\u201d (Allison, the main character\u2019s daughter, said)
\nThat\u2019s because Jane\u2019s mother is a slut.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong>
\nSlut-shaming aside, I enjoyed the book. It was well written.<\/p>\n

This book was received, free of charge, through the Goodreads First Reads program. Quotes may not be accurate as they were culled from an advanced uncorrected proof.<\/em><\/p>\n

On Goodreads<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crafty Elizabeth Maxwell, the author, uses two separate devices to tell her story. The first, which is only used to get the story started although it becomes the plot, is a writer telling a story, switching back to her life, story. The second one, which works but I doubt will ever work for any of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-fiction","category-romance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelerc.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelerc.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelerc.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelerc.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelerc.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wheelerc.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelerc.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelerc.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelerc.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelerc.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}